Give Supervisors Mike Wasserman and Cindy Chavez credit for pushing county staff to research local drone restrictions and address the growing threat the new technology poses at correctional facilities.

The only question is, why stop there?

Ample evidence exists to consider banning drones from flying over any area that draws significant crowds or creates safety concerns, including the county fairgrounds or the county’s 28 parks. It’s only a matter of time until those who would do the public harm figure out ways to weaponize drones and use them to create mayhem. Santa Clara County is ideally situated to take a lead role in minimizing the danger.

The risk of a drone delivery at the county’s Main Jail in San Jose is remote, since the high-rise structure has no open-air access. But it was Wasserman who realized the county’s 62-acre, medium-security Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milipitas poses a legitimate concern. Wasserman and Chavez learned that at least one crashed drone was discovered on the Elmwood grounds earlier this year with a package of methamphetamines on board.

Correctional officials around the country are aware that drones are rapidly becoming the technology of choice to smuggle drugs, cell phones and knives into jails and prisons. In August 2015, Ohio correctional officers had to break up a melee involving 75 inmates at the Mansfield Correctional Institution after a drone dropped a package containing tobacco, marijuana and enough heroin for 140 individual doses.

Prison officials in Michigan, Iowa and New York have also reported drone incidents.

But the most troubling prison drone story to date involves a 2016 Western Maryland case. A former inmate at Eastern Correctional Institution worked out an elaborate scheme to smuggle drugs by drone on a regular basis into Maryland’s biggest correctional facility. The Washington Post reported that the inmate, who was eventually caught, made more than $20,000 from the deliveries. He used the money to purchase a bigger drone with a basket capable of carrying a package weighing up to 16 ounces. Correctional officers are especially alarmed because Smith and Wesson, Kahr Arms, L.W. Seecamp Co. and Kel-Tec all make lightweight pistols weighing in at less than 16 ounces.

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“I don’t believe that we have made enough of a concerted effort to say where it is appropriate to fly drones and where it’s inappropriate,” said Chavez. “We also need to step up our counter-intelligence efforts for places that are at higher risk for injuries or fatalities.”

The drone industry is expected to put 10,000 drones in the air by 2020. They carry the potential for a wide range of valuable applications for the private sector and law enforcement agencies. But government agencies, including Santa Clara County, have an obligation to get out in front of the new technology before tragedy strikes.